The Psychoanalytic Social Worker/The Social Work Psychoanalyst: What Shall Be Our Message?

Many social workers experience a powerful bond with their profession and with the contributions of psychoanalysis. This paper explores these bonds and demonstrates the substantial overlap, and occasional divergence, which exists between these two important fields. It is especially gratifying to see the renewed emphasis on the treatment relationship in contemporary psychoanalytic writings because the relationship has always been central to social work practice. Finally, all psychoanalytic social workers are encouraged to invest themselves in transferring the legacy of their work to beginning social workers, social work students, and the generations of social workers that will follow them.     

The Relationship Between Social Work and Psychoanalysis: The Future Impact of Social Workers

Because social workers are likely to have a more expanded role within organized psychoanalysis than previously, it seems timely to consider the numerous challenges and opportunities ahead with respect to social workers’ impact on the practice of psychoanalysis. For those who become social work psychoanalysts, in particular, a pivotal issue is the degree to which they retain their core identity as clinical social workers. It is important for them to integrate and balance the diverse aspects of their dual identity, to participate in our social work organizations, to contribute to developing psychoanalysis, and to work to keep the teaching of contemporary psychoanalytic theories alive in social work education.

When Social Work and Psychoanalysis Meet

In this paper I share my personal journey from agency social worker to psychoanalyst. I show how I have brought to my psychoanalytic work the teachings of such well known social workers as Mary Richmond, Bertha Reynolds, Gordon Hamilton, and Florence Hollis as well those of such contemporary social workers as the late Gertrude and Rubin Blanck, Nancy Bridges, and Eda Goldstein, among others. In the presentation, I also consider how social work values, social work ethics and social work attitudes have influenced my approach to the practice of psychoanalysis. The attitudes which I refer to, include flexibility, beginning where the client is; an appreciation of the importance of understanding a patient’s cultural background and a recognition of the importance of the relationship in the therapeutic encounter. These were not standard for psychoanalysts at the time I began to practice. Today however psychoanalysis has largely caught up with social work, and this paper affirms how those of us who have had a social work background are well prepared for psychoanalysis in the 21st century.

The Influence of the Psychoanalytic Community of Emigrès (1930–1950) on Clinical Social Work with Children

This study examines the influence of emigrè psychoanalysts on clinical social work with children in America. It is anticipated that this study will be useful in understanding the transformation of some social workers into more psychoanalytically-oriented clinicians regarding the treatment of children during the period 1900–1950. Using literature review and primary source material, the study examines the evolution of clinical social work with children from a child welfare model to a child guidance model incorporating psychoanalytic thinking. The study examines how psychoanalytic theory influenced social workers in their conceptualization and treatment of children, and describes the difficulties confronted by the emigrè psychoanalytic community as it tried to enter professional practice in America.     

From psychoanalysis to clinical social work: An evolutionary process

The development of psychoanalytically oriented social work is traced from its beginnings in 1918. The author distinguishes between practitioners who do social work and those who do psychoanalytic therapy. Such therapy is defined as a method which attends to the dialectic interplay between conscious and unconscious forces. Social workers who receive analytic training may facilitate a much needed revival of psychoanalysis as the social enterprise which Freud originally envisioned.Keynote address at the Third National Clinical Conference of the Comittee on Psychoanalysis at New York on November 1, 1990.     

Social Work and Child Psychoanalysis: Where the Twain Shall Meet

This essay explores the ways in which social work theory can contribute to the theory and practice of child psychoanalysis. Both clinical social work and child psychoanalysis borrow from psychoanalytic theory for explanations of motivation, development, and technique. The fundamental premises of social work theory, including a psychosocial perspective, the centrality of relationship as a medium of change, a commitment to social justice, and the importance of “starting where the person is,” inform the therapist’s stance and open the therapeutic space to include a wide range of ways of using the therapeutic relationship and the therapeutic experience. Integrating these principles into clinical practice theory offers a way to understand this range of ways of using therapeutic experience. Highlights of some of the practice literature are surveyed. Two case examples illustrate the value of social work theory in understanding therapeutic process.     

Sociology,Psychoanalysis, and Marginalization: Unconscious Defenses and Disciplinary Interests

American sociology as a field tends to marginalize psychoanalytic perspectives despite scholars Cavalletto and Silver showing that this was not the case during Talcott Parson's intellectual heyday in the 1940s. From the 1970s on, though, constructionists emphasized the conservative rather than liberatory side of the Freudian tradition and symbolic interactionism took the place of psychoanalysis as the legitimized framework for understanding individuals. Marginalization has occurred for at least three reasons: (1) the legacies of positivism created a bias toward empirically observable rather than relatively unmeasurable concepts like the Freudian unconscious; (2) psychoanalysis uses internal data whereas sociologists look externally rather than inward; (3) because psychoanalysis focuses on individuals and sociology on groups, it is argued that the two are incommensurate. Nevertheless, even in the face of marginalization, some scholars have combined psychoanalytic and sociological perspectives in myriad ways conceiving of multi dimensional rather than rationalistic individuals within social and cultural settings; exploring interactional dynamics that are at once psychic‐and‐social; and, as in the work of Wilfred Bion, studying the psychoanalytic mechanisms of groups themselves. I posit that the ongoing marginalization of psychoanalysis deprives the discipline of an innovative tool of analysis, an especially salient one at times when the emotional and psychological dimensions of social life are glaringly evident.     

Being neither Pollyanna nor Henny Penny: Responding to McDonald and Jones

Abstract

This paper provides an account of the earliest contributions to family theory and practice by social workers, beginning in the late nineteenth century. The paper argues that the first widespread practice of ‘family work’ by the helping professions was carried out by social workers, primarily women, despite this being rarely acknowledged in the family therapy literature. An analysis of gender and its place in the development of professional status and the ownership of ideas is provided.

Summary

This paper has traced the place of the family in social work theory and practice since the beginnings of the profession, with a particular focus on theoretical developments in social work in the United States. A number of points have been argued. Firstly, there is significant historical evidence that social workers, most of them women, pioneered family work many decades before the term ‘family therapy’ was invented. This directly challenges the claim made by a number of family therapy historians that work with families was pioneered by psychiatrists in the 1950s and 1960s. It is argued here that this discrepancy is largely a result of differences in professional power and gender status.

Secondly, it is argued that the impact of psychoanalytic theory on social work was profound, not only in terms of how it might have distracted the profession from further developing its early family systems focus, but also in how its multidisciplinary practice tended to place social workers, again mostly women, in somewhat limited and prescribed positions.

In addition, it is argued that social work's emphasis on the family and family intervention has waxed and waned due to these concepts not appearing to fit neatly into divisions between fields of practice, such as casework, group work and Community development. While social work struggled with finding a place for the further development of family social work theory, the rapidly growing domain of family therapy quickly colonised this field of practice, giving little credit to the ground already laid by social workers.     

Omniscience at the Edge of Chaos: complexity,defences and change in a Children and Families Social Work department

ABSTRACT

This paper will explore a period of organisational change in a Children and Families Social Work team, applying ideas from complexity theory and psychoanalysis to explore the changes that occurred. In doing so it will critique the Newtonian concept of cause-and-effect linear causality, instead positing a nonlinear model of an organisation as a complex adaptive system in flux as it interacts with its environment. The paper will go on to posit that Bion’s psychoanalytic concepts of Omniscience and K Activity are self-organising forces in social care organisations, and when anxiety is not managed effectively, reductionist technical-rationale approaches to Children and Families Social Work dominate practice. It will conclude by outlining how the organisation’s effective management of anxiety through the creation of containment, created a series of organisational changes. These changes better supported the management of the complexity and uncertainty inherent in the social work task, raising possibilities of improvements in social work practice beyond the organisation.     

Integration and alternatives: Some current issues in psychoanalytic theory

The first great bridge between psychoanalysis and social work came with the concepts of ego psychology which provided a synthesis between the worlds of the social order and the psychological depths. Current psychoanalytic theorists now question whether any one psychological theory is sufficient to describe the complexity of human experience, and suggest that each theory has a piece of the truth because it states something that is correct about the patient at a particular time in the treatment. Adherence to multiple theories makes a complex problem for the clinical practitioner, who must decide from which perspective to respond to the clinical material of the moment. Psychoanalytic theorists are also questioning the degree to which it is actually the content of the therapist's interpretations which brings about change in the patient. This article suggests that these developments in psychoanalysis, with their emphasis on therapeutic flexibility and the importance of the relationship will renew and reinvigorate the bridge between psychoanalysis and clinical social work.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the First Clinical Conference of the National Federation of Societies for Clinical Social work.     

Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Social Work Theory

This paper maintains that much in the contemporary postmodern and relational paradigms in psychoanalysis is a refinding of elements of clinical social work theory. To illustrate that, this paper elucidates the pivotal differences between contemporary psychoanalytic theory and classical ego psychological psychoanalytic theory. I describe my own experiences in training, first as a social worker, then as an ego psychological psychotherapist, and finally as a psychoanalyst to illustrate how I began to realize the homologous nature of clinical social work and contemporary psychoanalysis. The beginnings of social casework theory from Mary Richmond and Charlotte Towle are then described. Like Moliere's bourgeois gentleman who discovered he's been speaking prose for forty years without knowing it, perhaps social work theory has been cutting edge for eighty years without knowing it.     

To Whom Does the Subject Speak? Between the Relational and Lacanian Schools of Psychoanalysis: A Conversation With Adrienne Harris and David Lichtenstein,Moderated by Chris Christian

Relational psychoanalysis is a relatively new but increasingly present school in contemporary psychoanalysis. Lacanian psychoanalysis is a dominant presence in France and South America but far less so in the English-speaking clinical world. And there is little contact between them. Adrienne Harris, one of the founders of relational psychoanalysis, and David Lichtenstein, a prominent New York-based Lacanian-influenced psychoanalyst, came together in the spring of 2012 for a rare conversation about the differences, similarities, and potential meeting points between these two psychoanalytic movements. The conversation spanned a wide psychoanalytic landscape from the origins and influences of these two movements to their conceptualization of basic psychoanalytic notions such as the unconscious, the self, the process and purpose of the psychoanalytic project, the nature of trauma, the work of interpretation, and the role of the analytic relationship. Ferenczi, Winnicott, and Bromberg offered common theoretical ground for this comparative conversation.     

Narrative social work: conversations between theory and practice

This paper begins by reviewing the current situation in social work practice. It is contended that much of the literature around social work consists of diverse models of practice that urge social workers to take up various theoretical positions. Equally, social workers are often encouraged to listen to the views of service users. In this complexity, it is often difficult for social workers to know which approach to take. This paper goes on to propose a narrative-based approach to social work practice. Narrative social work is defined as a conversation between theory and practice, which can lead to development in both social workers and service users. An example from the lead author's practice is used to outline the model in action. The paper concludes with some comments about the values inherent in narrative based social work.     

Muriel Dimen Interviewed by Andrew Samuels in the Context of the Publication of Her Book Sexuality,Intimacy, Power

Samuels interviewed Dimen in lieu of a book review for her Sexuality, Intimacy, Power. The interview was unstructured and dialogical and covered the following main topics: (a) professional issues in the field of psychoanalysis such as the relation of theory to practice and reflections on the nature and content of trainings in psychoanalysis; (b) issues in the broad areas of sexuality and gender including the question of moral relativism with respect to sexual behaviors historically designated as “perverse” and considerations of masculinity, femininity, and patriarchy; (c) intellectual considerations such as the relations between anthropology and psychoanalysis and the as yet indeterminate nature of the discipline of psychoanalysis, neither art nor science and not a hybrid of the two; and (d) the political, social, and cultural contexts within which psychoanalytic endeavors including the interview itself are taking place.     

Reflexivity in the Research Process: Psychoanalytic Observations

This paper highlights what psychoanalysis can add to discussions of reflexivity, by specifically describing how reflexivity is conceptualized and fostered on psychoanalytic observation methods courses at the Tavistock Clinic, London. It is demonstrated that this psychological form of reflexivity is relevant to empirical and conceptual work and shown that it shares interesting parallels with debates about reflexivity in social research methods, while also being able to contribute to discussions of what constitutes reflexivity and what kinds of methods course might facilitate it. Reflexivity is often discussed in relation to a researcher’s empirical work, but this paper argues that reflexivity is equally needed in relation to the academic context in which most research and learning takes place. This paper demonstrates how psychoanalytic approaches to learning stimulate a reflexive relation to empirical and conceptual work and it provides examples of reflexivity from a two‐year infant observation and a research project on romantic love (involving conceptual and biographical research).     

Cursed creatives: alienation,sublimation, and the plight of contemporary creative work

ABSTRACT

This paper connects the critical discourse on the ‘creative class’ with a longstanding lineage of thought on creativity in psychoanalysis, demonstrating their combined value in understanding worker subjectivity and exposing the perils of contemporary creative work. Drawing upon object relations theorizing in particular, the argument is made that the ‘objects’ of contemporary creative work coupled with its surrounding ‘potential space’ prove severely impoverished, giving rise to a newfound experience of alienation. Accounts of creative workers are presented to further elucidate alienation’s unconscious correlates, as well as to suggest ways of mitigating creativity’s compromised expression through the process of ‘sublimation’ – a concept central to the psychoanalytic theorizing on creativity, yet wholly absent from the contemporary discourse. Implications for the critical study of the ‘creative class’ are discussed.     

On the Impossibility of Getting It Right the First Time: Cultural Determinants of Theory

Although our very name, social work announces that this profession is attentive to the socio-cultural surround and the ways in which environment plays its role in the shaping of our psyches, the clinicians among us have drawn extensively on psychoanalytic theory, although they were aware that until very recently its theories remained rather culture-blind. Perhaps in some measure due to the increasing proportion of social workers trained as analysts, there now exists in the analytic world an intention to integrate into its practices and theories that fourth leg, the culture (or cultures) in which we are born and live. It may be that the largely female social work profession may play an important role in enabling psychoanalysis to overcome its previous unconsciousness about that component.     

Instrumentalism,knowledge and gender in social work

Abstract

The new public sector managerialism of the 1990s has introduced a profound cultural change within social work organisations. It involves a substitution of knowledge which is primarily instrumental in character for the discursive, interpretive and reflexive knowledge on which social workers have traditionally relied in client-centred practice. This paper draws on perspectives from critical theory and psychoanalysis and argues that, despite the apparent neutrality of managerialist discourse, it is both ideological and gendered. It encourages the construction of rigid socially structured defence systems within welfare organisations and is inimical to the kind of thought which can engage with interwoven emotional and material needs to develop reparative practice. Furthermore it is in danger of undermining precisely those forms of supervision that can sustain professionals in the face of the emotional impact of relationships with distressed and damaged people.     

“Disagreeable Echoes … Reached Me for Many Years After”: (An Excerpt from Free Associations)

This essay offers a comment on Bringing the Plague: Toward a Postmodern Psychoanalysis from the perspective of British object-relations psychoanalysis. It reviews the different histories of psychoanalysis in Britain and the United States, noting the continuing clinical focus of the field in Britain, in both the public sector and in private practice, as a source of continuing strength. Psychoanalysis does not face the scale of crisis in the United Kingdom that it now does in the United States, possibly because it has never achieved the same degree of influence. I argue that a more important difference than that between “modernist” and “postmodernist” approaches to psychoanalysis lies between all psychoanalytic psychotherapies and the behavioural and pharmacological approaches to psychic distress that are becoming so invasive. A positive aspect of psychoanalytic modernism was its assertion of a shared human nature and of the right of all individuals to be treated as autonomous subjects.